Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 7 September 2025).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 6: 39-42 (NRSVA):
39 He also told them a parable: ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 42 Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye”, when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.’
Today’s Reflection:
For some days, the Gospel readings have taken us through the ‘Sermon on the Level Place’, Saint Luke’s equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, which we began reading yesterday with Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (Luke 6: 20-38).
As we continue this sequence of readings from Saint Luke’s Gospel, we read sayings whose parallels in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 15) are addressed to the Pharisees, but here are addressed to the disciples.
In this reading, Christ makes two points.
Firstly, the blind cannot lead the blind. The disciple, left to himself or herself, does not know very much and depends on the teacher. But once the disciple is fully trained and has learnt everything it is possible to discern from the teacher, then the learner becomes an extension of the teacher. At that point, the disciple shares the teacher’s knowledge and wisdom and can, in turn, be a guide to others.
We ought to listen carefully to what Christ says to us and make it part of our own lives. Only then can we effectively lead others to him.
But, secondly, we need to be mindful about sitting in judgment on others. Christ uses a graphic image of someone trying to remove a speck of dust from another person’s eye while there is a large ‘log’ in their own. How can I see properly to correct the vision of my fellow disciple or Christian when my own vision is so distorted?
The faults I so easily see in others are often trivial in comparison with my own shortcomings. Of course, much of the energy I exert in gossip and in putting down others may be sub-conscious attempts to compensate for my own shortcomings. Instead of lifting myself up by changing my ways, I can try to drag others down.
But then, our judgments so often are based purely on external behaviour. We usually have no idea of the inner motives or intentions of other people, or an awareness of their inability to behave in way other than the way then do.
How often, when I am quick to criticism other people behind their backs am I equally quick to say those things to face-to-face. Yet, how often, when I am asked professionally to offer an objective evaluation of a person’s behaviour or their fitness for some responsibility, do I shy away from those responsibilities?
What is true sight and true light?
During a visit to Liverpool many years ago, I visited Hope Street, and there above the Hope Street entrance to the former Royal School for the Blind was the inscription: ‘Christ heals the blind, for who denies that in the mind dwell truer sight and clearer light than in the eyes?’
Both this morning’s reading and that inscription also find interesting parallels in Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ (The Republic, Book VII).
No one, of course, denies the idea that the mind possesses truer sight and clearer light than the eyes. In an account of Socrates in The Republic, Plato argues that our earthly senses can be misleading and that true understanding is found through the intellect and the forms, not the physical senses.
In Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, prisoners mistake shadows on a wall for reality. When one prisoner is freed and sees the true objects and the light of the sun, he finds the ‘reality’ of the cave far less clear than the true world, even though his eyes are pained by the light. This illustrates that physical sight can be deceptive, while the intellect understands a higher reality.
Plato believed that the intellect and reason, not the senses, provide true understanding and wisdom. The mind's perception is superior to the deceptive nature of physical vision.
He recalls Socrates’ allegory of the cave. Socrates has compared a philosophic education to leaving a dark cave and emerging into the light. He notes that, when you leave the dark and enter the light, it takes your eyes awhile to adjust; you cannot see at first.
Imagine leaving a dark cinema in the middle of a sunny day: it is hard to see outside at first.
So, the philosophers need to leave the cave and have their eyes adjust to the bright outside world. Once this happens, though, Socrates argues that they must be forced to go back into the dark cave, to rule.
The cave, it turns out, is an image of the city with its conventional opinions, as opposed to the truth. Socrates notes that, when the philosophers go back into the cave, it will also take some time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Imagine, now, going back into that dark cinema in the middle of that sunny day; it is hard to see inside at first.
Socrates is comparing bodily vision to intellectual vision. There are two possible causes for someone who has bad bodily vision: they might be going from the dark to the light; or they might be going from the light to the dark. So too with intellectual vision: someone with bad intellectual vision may be going from the dark cave of opinions to the light of the truth, or they may be going from the light of the truth back to the dark cave of opinions.
This morning’s Gospel sayings warn us against either form of blindness, but also warn us against leading others when we are not aware of suffering from one or other – or both – forms of blindness.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 12 September 2025):
The theme this week (7 to 13 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Cementing a Legacy’ (pp 36-37). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 12 September 2025) invites us to pray:
Heavenly Father, help us to steward our financial gifts with wisdom and faithfulness, ensuring they are used to support your work and care for all in need.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflections
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
